Monty Mole

From SMWiki

Official Nintendo artwork for Monty Mole

A Monty Mole is a mole enemy which first appeared in Super Mario World.

[edit] General Information

In Super Mario World, Monty Moles are small tan moles with squinty eyes. Their presence is made known by a mound of moving dirt appearing either on the ground or in a wall. Shortly afterwards, the mole will burst out in a spray of dirt. Some Moles will ignore Mario, running straight forward and occasionally hopping. Others, however, will chase after Mario with supreme ferocity. Luckily, a single stomp will defeat them. (As will fireballs, cape swipes, or Koopa shells) They're also a favorite snack of Yoshi.

It can be assumed that Monty Moles are close relatives of the giant cave-dwelling Mega Moles, but the two varieties of mole are never seen together in the original game.

[edit] Hacking Information

Ground-dwelling Moles are sprite 4D and ledge-dwelling Moles are sprite 4E. They use Mario's palette 08. (The ground-dwelling Moles' palette can be changed with Tweaker, but the ledge-dwelling variety must be changed with a hex editor) Monty Moles are only useable with the plains sprite set. (SP4 = GFX 09) Additionally, if Moles which pop out of walls are used, the grassy foreground set must be used, (FG3=15) or else the holes left by the Moles will show up as garbage. Whether the Mole will chase Mario or simply run forward and hop is determined by the Mole's X position.

Later in the game, Monty Moles will pop out much faster. This is dependent on the submap in which the level is located. In levels located on the Yoshi's Island submap, they wait several seconds before popping out, and in levels located on all other maps, they pop out almost instantly. They can be made to always pop out at the quicker rate by changing x0E4FB from 68 to 20 or to always pop out at the slower rate by changing xE501 from 20 to 68.